Broadband in Morocco: Political Will Meets Socio-Economic Reality

Broadband in Morocco: Political Will Meets Socio-Economic Reality

Understanding Morocco's broadband landscape and its ICT future

Fully one quarter of Moroccan households boast a broadband connection - up from just two percent in 2004. This report seeks to understand Morocco's relatively high broadband adoption while proposing additional areas of focus to move beyond this initial success.

This report presents the broadband landscape in Morocco and the approach by which the country has advanced its ICT sector over the past fifteen years. Despite being constrained by human development challenges and regional political uncertainty in today’s “Arab Spring,” Morocco has emerged as a trailblazer in certain areas with particularly impressive mobile broadband results.

The mobile industry is a big spotlight in Morocco’s broadband achievements. The introduction of third generation wireless technology in 2007 led to substantive growth of overall Internet subscriptions. This however has come at the cost of investment in fixed infrastructure. There is a need to boost fiber deployment in both local access and backbone networks. Understandably, such civil works require financing that will only happen if the private sector is confident it will see a return in its investments.

Going beyond its initial broadband success and making broadband sustainable and transformational will be a challenge for Morocco. Deeping broadband access must find a way to deal with the social and economic reality of a lower-middle-income country. This will require fresh and innovative solutions including more emphasis on bottom-up initiatives.

This case study is one of an initial series of seven that will contribute to the Broadband Strategies Toolkit, an online resource for policy-makers and regulators, especially in developing countries. The case studies are generously funded by the Korean Trust Fund (KTF) on Information and Communications for Development (IC4D). The KTF is a partnership between the government of the Republic of Korea and the World Bank Group whose purpose is to advance the ICT4D agenda to contribute to growth and reduce poverty in developing countries.

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Broadband in Morocco: Political Will Meets Socio-Economic Reality

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